Since gathering in groups to use our right to free speech is
perfectly legal, why do police infiltrate protest movements with
undercover cops? Why not simply police these events in uniform?

Maybe it’s because police officers — or at least their police chiefs — are inclined to destroy all protest
movements, no matter how peaceful or just they are. Seen through that
lens, undercover cops are just another tool — along with police
departments’ assault weapons, body armor, and SWAT vehicles — to force
our compliance.

Alas, for some folks, all demands for justice pose a threat, whether you’re from No KXL or from Al Qaeda. No wonder police approach the Occupy and #BlackLivesMatter
movements the same way they approach crime rings and terrorist cells:
With bullets, tear gas, and infiltration by undercover cops.

How can undercover cops destroy a protest movement? In an entry on agent provocateurs, Wikipedia
explains that options for these cops include: causing drama to sow
discord, inciting protesters to acts that are violent and/or not
legal (though framing them or setting them up works just as well), and
publicly sharing information in a way that makes a protest movement look
less credible.

Michael Jaeger and George Buford may look like they’re
marching through Oakland “for Michael Brown and Eric,” but they’re
really undercover cops. Image: Composite with screen grabs from We Cop Watch‘s YouTube video exposing undercover cops at a protest in Oakland.

How undercover cops hollowed out the Occupy movement.

When the Occupy Wall Street
movement launched in October, 2011 with protesters literally occupying
Zuccotti Park in New York City’s financial district, many of us felt
sympathy. After all, millions of Americans had lost their jobs and homes
due to the bubble Wall Street created, and received no help. Meanwhile,
the banks got a huge, taxpayer-funded bailout.

Over the next few months, the Occupy movement had raised public
awareness about income inequality, and completely changed the public
debate on economic issues. For the first time in 30 years, Americans
began to ask whether supply-side economics and “trickle-down” can work for anyone but the one percent.

Fast forward two years later: While we’ve made some gains in
addressing income inequality — including minimum wage hikes in cities
and states across the country — nobody seems to talk about about the
Occupy movement any more. Why? The big news outlets insist Occupy flat
lined because the movement splintered and grew disorganized.

The
lending library and wireless stations provided by volunteers at Occupy
Wall Street in Zuccotti Park on day 48. As you can see, Occupy was NOT
“fragmented” or “disorganized,” as the media claims. They were
infiltrated and weakened by undercover cops. Photo: cc 2011, David
Shankbone, via Wikipedia.Truthoutreports on
how undercover cops arrived at Zuccotti Park on day one, and also
wormed their way into Occupy movements in cities across the nation,
including Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Nashville, and Oakland.

In New York City, Occupy activist Marshall Garrett told The Village Voiceabout
how undercover cops came and acted “disruptive” and “loud” during an
action at Citibank to make the the protesters look bad:

“But what was unknown to us and to a lot of
people that day, including those in Times Square, was that there were
undercover cops already there, paid to be disruptive and to be loud. One
undercover cop present [at Citi] was louder than the entire group.”

And despite the protesters’ carefully laid out plans to comply with
the law, avoid ticking off Citibank’s workers and customers, and to keep
an eye on the exits, they found themselves trapped and outwitted at
every turn.

“It was a bit startling how inside
their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests
and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to
leave.”

That’s right. The police and bank security guards told the protesters
to leave, blocked the exits when they tried to comply, and then hauled
them off to jail for not leaving.

“Yeah, the bank security, along with the
undercover officer, pushed us back and locked the doors. They would not
allow us to leave, which is illegal, and said the cops are on the way
and you are all arrested.”

So how did Garrett figure out which so-called “protester” was the
undercover cop? Oh, he was the one slamming a fellow protester into a
wall.

“He arrested one of the protestors outside, and
slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw
him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white
shirt cops, telling them about what we’d been saying.”

Meanwhile on the Left Coast, Oakland, CA’s Acting Chief of Police
Howard Jordan also had plans to embed undercover cops into his city’s
growing Occupy movement, and Jacob Crawford from We Cop Watch — a nonprofit watch dog group — caught him talking about it on tape.

In the chilling audio, Jordan claimed that since San Francisco,
Seattle, and other big US cities infiltrate protest movements with
undercover cops, so should Oakland. That way, they can get advance
information, “and maybe even direct them to do something we want them to
do.”

“You don’t need to have some special skill to be
able to infiltrate these groups. So if you put people [undercover cops]
in there from the beginning, I think we’ll be able to gather the
information, and maybe even direct them to do something we want them to
do.”

“I’m a police officer. I’m part of the 99
percent. […] In the ’60s when people would protest, would gather in
order to bring about change, right? Those protests were nonviolent they
were peaceful assemblies. They were broken up with dogs, hoses, sticks.
[…] It looks like there was a square, and police shot tear gas. That
could be the photograph or the video for our generation.”

Shavies also claimed that he sees today’s fight against income
inequality as the moral equivalent of the fight against racism back in
the 1960s.

“That’s our Birmingham. So, twenty years from now
this movement could be the turning point, the tipping point, right.
It’s about time your generation stood up for something. It’s about time
young people are in the streets. […] Ya’ll don’t need to throw gas
canisters into a group of people occupying an intersection.”

Here’s the interview with Shavies.

But in the same piece, Think Progress warns that police were sneaking undercover cops into Occupy movements across the nation in hope of destroying them.

Earlier today, the Tennessean published excerpts
from emails sent by the Tennessee Highway Patrol that confirmed not
only that police were infiltrating Occupy Nashville but that they were
hoping for the movement’s demise.

Undercover cops Invade #BlackLivesMatter

Countercurrent News reports Crawford and his crew at We Cop Watch have
stayed vigilant in keeping a beady eye on Oakland’s finest. And sure
enough — in the wake of the grand juries’ decisions to let the police
officers who executed Michael Brown and Eric Garner walk free — the
Oakland Police Department is already at work.

#BlackLivesMatter
launched in 2012 after a jury acquitted George Zimmerman, even though
he had clearly murdered Trayvon Martin in cold blood. The movement has
gathered steam as daily headlines drive home the tragic fact that every
28 hours a black man, woman or child gets killed by cops — like
Ferguson’s Darren Wilson and NYPD’s Daniel Pantaleo — or by
“stand-your-ground” vigilantes like George Zimmerman.

During a protest on December 5th, Crawford caught Officers Michael
Jaeger and George Buford posing as scruffy, hoodie-wearing protesters
named “Roy” and “Devon.” In contrast with Shavies, Jaeger doubled down
on his lies, pretended to take offense at being pegged as an undercover
cop, and insisted he and Buford were there for “Michael Brown and Eric.”
Even though — for Pete’s sake! — both men actually saw Crawford’s
crowd snapping photos of them in their uniforms. Unlike Shavies with
the Occupy movement, neither Jaeger nor Buford have voiced support for
the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

But a quick search on the Oakland Wikia
reveals that Jaeger and Buford are both listed as “community policing”
officers or “problem-solving officers” — OPD’s euphemisms for
“undercover cops.” To their credit, the Oakland Police Beat database
shows Jaeger and Buford have
won awards, gotten nice “letters of appreciation” from people, and have
not been “named in any lawsuits” or been involved in any shootings.
Then again, Darren Wilson once won some kind of award, didn’t he?

Watch Crawford and other protesters call out Officers Jaeger and Buford for acting as undercover cops.

Sending undercover cops and agents to spy on protest movements is nothing new. Creepy FBI spook J. Edgar Hoover probably
began doing that when he launched the FBI back in 1935… or perhaps
sooner. The sad thing is how we still allow the people we hire to fight
crime treat dissent as a criminal act.

Quotes

"There is beauty in truth, even if it's painful. Those who lie, twist life so that it looks tasty to the lazy, brilliant to the ignorant, and powerful to the weak. But lies only strengthen our defects. They don't teach us anything, help anything, fix anything or cure anything. Nor do they develop one's character, one's mind, one's heart or one's soul." Jose Harris

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